To the slightly obsessed member of the Myst Universe fandom, the idea of an encyclopedia written not just about a fictional language (in particular, D’ni), but in it, must be quite mouth-watering. An equivalent does exist for Star Trek fans: Wikipedia in Klingon (and you thought you’ve seen it all! 
).
But the big hindrance making the concept hard to actualize is not lack of interest. The Guild of Linguists existed many years ago as a group of enthusiasts working on dictionaries, and even going so far as to develop their own transliteration system, who have been particularly focused on making the language’s intricacies easier to comprehend. Today, we have the D’ni Linguistic Fellowship. They may not be able to compete against the Klingon Language Institute, but again, that’s not the hold-up.
There has only been a single true original source of anything related to the language, and that would be RAWA. Cyan obviously can’t afford to employ him full-time just to work on the language, much less have multiple people work on it. In contrast, Klingon was developed by Marc Okrand, a linguist specifically hired for this task and with, unsurprisingly, plenty of experience in other real and artificial languages.
When Myst Fans need an unknown word translated or have questions on details such as the notation of simple arithmetic expressions in D’ni numerals, they can sometimes literally wait for years for an answer, or even entirely in vain. When answers do come, they’re either directly from Richard (traditionally on The Lyst, but lately also on other places, such as the DRC Forums), or integrated somehow into a game or novel. Riven, for example, provided many little pieces of information on matters such as basic numerals, timekeeping, etc. But Cyan doesn’t release new products that often, and hasn’t used Uru Live much at all either as an opportunity to expand the language (and related things) – presumably due to the good ol’ lack of resources. And RAWA, also for obvious reasons, doesn’t have much time these days to step up himself. Time spent communicating with language enthusiasts could be time economically better spent improving the state of Cyan and its core product, or even just communicating with actual customers with actual problems and concerns.
If all of the above was self-evident (but still interesting) to you, the following may not be: how about a dialect?
Think about it. We have modern guilds heavily inspired from the D’ni system, yet careful not to imitate it too much, both to avoid repeating its mistakes as well as to give its substitute a new, present-day spin. We have an ongoing restoration process in general. We have, thanks to Yeesha and/or the Bahro, linking books that go far beyond what the D’ni thought possible or safe. We have frequent discussions over whether we should choose plan A or plan B, or whether the cavern is doomed anyway and should be abandoned ASAP. Heck, we have Modern Greek. Why, then, not create a Modern D’ni branch? Is that really so terribly far-fetched? Is there any reason at all why, of all things, the language must be preserved to be as exact as possible, when everything else isn’t?
The basic structure and vocabulary can stay the same. But as for the advanced things we don’t know? Let’s come up with them ourselves! We have a huge community that is more than capable, and yes, we already have had an occasion where explorers proposed a new word. A compound of existing ones, mind you, but still: Vahkhro.
Anyone?
Others' Thoughts
Comment on October 28th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
It may sound interesting to create a modern D’ni variant, but one must ask: What’s the point? Who would be using such a language? And most importantly: what would make it worth the trouble?
Comment on October 28th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Isn’t that the case for just about any fan project? You can answer all those three questions, but you’d never find something that’s satisfying. Economically, no fan project is viable or otherwise sensible.
And yet, the point is fun, the users would be the same people who create it (perhaps a few more), and the joy of creating and using it would make it worth the trouble. Or not. Really, that’s something entirely subjective.
Were your over 4,000 posts on MYSTcommunity worth the trouble? Many other people might respond negatively to that; they don’t get any value out of a board that largely focuses on fictional storylines with no real background at all. And yet you made them. And some people made over a thousand contributions to MYSTlore. Others create and run their own websites, or perhaps do renderings, or they even go through the trouble of crafting a plus squee, even though they’re not allowed so much as sell it or promote it in any way, because that would infringe on trademarks. You either enjoy doing it, or you don’t; if you ask yourself if there is any point, chances are it wasn’t meant to be.
Comment on October 29th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Maybe it’s just that I never quite grasped the idea behind fan fiction, or fan-created content in general. It doesn’t interest me, at least not when it’s really about new content. I like discussion, I like speculation, I like studying the backstory (to some degree - learning Cyan’s D’ni never interested me either) but I don’t like adding really new content to it. I would rather create a fictional universe of my own than build a new layer of fiction on top of someone else’s fictional universe.
The number of people that ever bothered to learn D’ni to a reasonable degree is pretty small, the number of people that are interested in this modern D’ni will be even smaller. I just don’t see how it could be fun to work on something like that. But I guess different people think differently.
Comment on October 29th, 2007 at 1:40 am
I think this is a really cool idea. In fact just a few minutes ago I edited the D’ni part of my user page. Where it had wikí for wiki, it now has korox ín geltantí (book of any writers). Where it had spæmij for spammed, it now has milešenij t’geltavtí rilmáruin (overwhelmed by unwanted writings).
While this is purer D’ni, it does emphasize the fact that we really don’t know enough D’ni to write anything, and we would have to invent a lot of modern jargon (spam, wiki, stub, computer, etc.). I would love to see this happen and will help however I can, but I don’t know how it could work. I guess you could call this… cautious optimism.
Comment on October 30th, 2007 at 12:41 am
I think it is a very good idea. I’ve been trying to learn D’ni for some time but am having trouble getting my head around some of the finer points. If a modern variation could be easier to learn that would be really nice too. I’d be very interested in such a project.
Comment on October 30th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Excuse me while I get all giggly and say “OMG!!1!” Okay, that’s over with.
Actually, I think it’s a terrific idea. While I am no trained linguist, I’ve actually done language development myself (I developed the bare-bones language used in the Ages of Ilathid project, for example, and I’ve done three other languages in various stages of development). So, if you do this, I am SOOOOO there. I’d even be willing to head up the project if you like
I have ideas already…I’m a serious conlang geek.
As for creating a modern dialect, this isn’t without precedent. Modern Hebrew is, in many ways, reconstructed off of Ancient Hebrew with other stuff tossed in there. And it does fit with Uru’s ‘reconstruction’ theme, as the stained-glass projects are actually fan creations, not reconstruction.
What makes learning languages from fictional sources so difficult is, really, the fragmentary nature of the languages. No one speaks Quenya Elvish, for instance, because there is not enough words and grammatical rules. There never will be, since Tolkien is not around to give us more. However, a modern D’ni might increase the use of the language as enough could be made to actually USE it as a language….
Comment on October 30th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I think that if we make a modern D’ni it should be like what Icelandic is. They don’t use any modern scientific words for anything; instead they make new ones based on old Icelandic words. If we make a new D’ni it should at least be D’ni-based.
Comment on October 30th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I don’t think you can strictly do that - language being what it is, words will leak in. Plus there may be no known D’ni words that can be adapted well.
But one thing that would be needed is a set of strategies for ‘borrowing’ words to make them fit D’ni phonotactics.
Comment on October 30th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Yeah, I guess words would leak in. But for words that D’ni should have that we don’t know (like statue) we should either make a D’ni word based on existing words (e.g. prov from præd (rock) and rov (person)) or try not to write about that in the article.
We should not just take it from a surface language (e.g. staçyú) or make up a random new word (e.g. wakaladú). Words should only leak in for things the D’ni wouldn’t know about (like guacamole).
Comment on October 31st, 2007 at 2:48 am
I posted about this on the DLF site: http://linguists.bahro.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1253
Comment on October 31st, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Cool. Replied.
Comment on November 1st, 2007 at 9:14 pm
I would like to post there, and I made a DLF account, but it doesn’t work. How can I do it?
Comment on November 1st, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Your account was in an approval queue. You should be fine now.
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